Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
In recent years, we have heard and read a lot about the failure of public schools in the United States. “Our schools are failing” has almost become a mantra with members of the media, many of our politicians, and the advocates of school reform. I have seen few people who have questioned the assertions made by the media, elected officials, and school reformers that schools in this country are not adequately educating our youth and that our educational system is a total and abject failure.
Many of those who criticize our public education system offer charter schools and the privatization of public schools as solutions to the “education problem” in this country.
I’m a retired public school educator. I have known and am friends with many current and former public school teachers. I know that there are many fine classroom practitioners working in our public schools today…and many excellent schools where our children receive a quality education. I am aware that there are also many schools where children may not be receiving the highest quality education. (What often go unmentioned in the media are the real reasons—including poverty—why some schools in this country may be failing.)
One problem with the “our schools are failing” mantra—as I see it—is that all our schools are lumped together in one basket labeled “failing.” How did this come to be? Do we Americans really believe that NO public schools in this country provide their students with an adequate education? Do we believe that all schools need to be reformed? If not, do we believe that even the schools which are actually doing an estimable job of educating their students need to be reformed?
I think it is time we start taking a good look at the individuals and organizations that are behind the push to establish thousands of charter schools and to use taxpayer money to fund private and religious schools as the means of raising the quality of education in this country.
ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council)
Last May, education historian Diane Ravitch wrote the following about one group that has been driving the school reform movement:
Since the 2010 elections, when Republicans took control of many states, there has been an explosion of legislation advancing privatization of public schools and stripping teachers of job protections and collective bargaining rights. Even some Democratic governors, seeing the strong rightward drift of our politics, have jumped on the right-wing bandwagon, seeking to remove any protection for academic freedom from public school teachers.
This outburst of anti-public school, anti-teacher legislation is no accident. It is the work of a shadowy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. Founded in 1973, ALEC is an organization of nearly 2,000 conservative state legislators. Its hallmark is promotion of privatization and corporate interests in every sphere, not only education, but healthcare, the environment, the economy, voting laws, public safety, etc. It drafts model legislation that conservative legislators take back to their states and introduce as their own “reform” ideas. ALEC is the guiding force behind state-level efforts to privatize public education and to turn teachers into at-will employees who may be fired for any reason. The ALEC agenda is today the “reform” agenda for education.
Ravitch continued:
A recent article in the Newark Star-Ledger showed how closely New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s “reform” legislation is modeled on ALEC’s work in education. Wherever you see states expanding vouchers, charters, and other forms of privatization, wherever you see states lowering standards for entry into the teaching profession, wherever you see states opening up new opportunities for profit-making entities, wherever you see the expansion of for-profit online charter schools, you are likely to find legislation that echoes the ALEC model.
ALEC has been leading the privatization movement for nearly 40 years, but the only thing new is the attention it is getting, and the fact that many of its ideas are now being enacted. Just last week, the Michigan House of Representatives expanded the number of cyber charters that may operate in the state, even though the academic results for such online schools are dismal.
ALEC Exposed provides a wealth of information about how—through ALEC—“corporations, ideologues, and their politician allies voted to spend public tax dollars to subsidize private K-12 education and attack professional teachers and teachers’ unions…” (You can find the information in Privatizing Public Education, Higher Ed Policy, and Teachers–the ALEC report prepared by The Center for American Democracy.)
Michelle Rhee and StudentsFirst
In addition to ALEC, there is another organization called StudentsFirst that has been helping to spearhead the effort to “reform” our public schools. According to Stephanie Simon, Michelle Rhee, founder and CEO of StudentsFirst, has “emerged as the leader of an unlikely coalition of politicians, philanthropists, financiers and entrepreneurs who believe the nation’s $500 billion-a-year public education system needs a massive overhaul.” Simon added that Rhee, the former chancellor of the D.C. public schools, “has vowed to raise $1 billion” for StudentsFirst, and “forever break the hold of teachers unions on education policy.”
Simon continued:
StudentsFirst has its own political action committee (PAC), its own SuperPAC, and a staff of 75, including a cadre of seasoned lobbyists Rhee sends from state to state as political battles heat up. She has flooded the airwaves with TV and radio ads in a half dozen states weighing new policies on charter schools, teacher assessment and other hot-button issues.
To her supporters, Rhee is a once-in-a-generation leader who has the smarts and the star power to make a difference on one of the nation’s most intractable public policy issues.
But critics say Rhee risks destroying the very public schools she aims to save by forging alliances with political conservatives, evangelical groups and business interests that favor turning a large chunk of public education over to the private sector. She won’t disclose her donors, but public records indicate that they include billionaire financiers and wealthy foundations.
In January the National Opportunity to Learn Campaign published its review of Rhee’s StudentsFirst State Policy Report Card for 2013:
Here’s an excerpt from the summary of the campaign’s review:
On Monday, the pro-privatization education group StudentsFirst, led by former D.C. public schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, released a State Policy Report Card, ranking states and giving each a letter grade based on their implementation of a slew of education reform policies. Rather than focus on issues facing students and families, particularly those affected by unequal access to school resources, the policy benchmarks in the new report reveal StudentsFirst’s obsession with charter schools and de-professionalizing the teaching profession. The report pushes policies that are either untested or disproven — but happen to be welcome in the halls of right-wing think tanks and politicians.
The National Opportunity to Learn Campaign listed five reasons why the StudentsFrirst Report Card is “a veritable wish list for privatization advocates and a recipe for failure for everyone else”:
1. Ironically, It Ignores The Needs of Students
2. It Opposes Personalized and Student-Centered Learning
3. It Argues That We Don’t Have Enough Quality Teachers… While Advocating That We Lower the Bar for Teacher Preparation
4. It Continues the Disastrous High-Stakes Testing Drumbeat
5. It Advocates “Equal Funding” and “Equitable Access” for Charter Corporations and Private Schools, Not Students
The DeVos Family
In May of 2011, Rachel Tabachnick wrote an article for AlterNet about the DeVos family, a wealthy family that has “remained largely under the radar, while leading a stealth assault on America’s schools” that has the “potential to do away with public education as we know it.”
Quoting Tabachnick:
Vouchers have always been a staple of the right-wing agenda. Like previous efforts, this most recent push for vouchers is led by a network of conservative think tanks, PACs, Religious Right groups and wealthy conservative donors. But “school choice,” as they euphemistically paint vouchers, is merely a means to an end. Their ultimate goal is the total elimination of our public education system.
The decades-long campaign to end public education is propelled by the super-wealthy, right-wing DeVos family. Betsy Prince DeVos is the sister of Erik Prince, founder of the notorious private military contractor Blackwater USA (now Xe), and wife of Dick DeVos, son of the co-founder of Amway, the multi-tiered home products business.
According to Tabachnick, the Devoses, who are big contributors to the Republican Party, spent millions of dollars “promoting the failed voucher initiative in Michigan in 2000.” Following that defeat, Tabachnick claims that the family decided to alter its strategy.
Tabachnick:
Instead of taking the issue directly to voters, they would support bills for vouchers in state legislatures. In 2002 Dick DeVos gave a speech on school choice at the Heritage Foundation. After an introduction by former Reagan Secretary of Education William Bennett, DeVos described a system of “rewards and consequences” to pressure state politicians to support vouchers. “That has got to be the battle. It will not be as visible,” stated DeVos. He described how his wife Betsy was putting these ideas into practice in their home state of Michigan and claimed this effort has reduced the number of anti-school choice Republicans from six to two. The millions raised from the wealthy pro-privatization contributors would be used to finance campaigns of voucher supporters and purchase ads attacking opposing candidates.
Dick DeVos advocates “stealth” strategy, Heritage Foundation, December 3, 2002
Last April, Daniel Denvir wrote an article for City Paper about the push for a school voucher program in the state of Pennsylvania. He said that names on the fliers of “legislative hopefuls” sounded like the names of “homegrown” candidates. He said that a “different picture” emerged when one followed the money:
…that of a statewide campaign, funded by wealthy donors, to stack the Pennsylvania primary battles on April 24 in favor of those supporting school vouchers, which allocate taxpayer funds for private and religious school tuition. The pro-voucher political action committee (PAC) Students First — funded by Pennsylvania hedge-fund managers and American Federation for Children, a Washington, D.C., pro-voucher group headed by Amway heiress and major right-wing donor Betsy DeVos — emerged on the state’s political scene with a bang for the 2010 elections. And they are back to spend big in 2012.
Lawrence Feinberg, co-chairman of the anti-voucher Keystone State Education Coalition, said, “I see a move by essentially a handful of very wealthy people who want to privatize public education for a wide variety of reasons. Not the least of which has to do with crushing labor unions, but they also want tax dollars going to private and religious schools.”
School Reform and The Profit Motive
In his Salon article The Bait and Switch of School “Reform,” David Sirota writes about the profit motive behind some of the reforms being advocated by “Big Money” interests.
Sirota:
As the Texas Observer recently reported in its exposé of one school-focused mega-corporation, “in the past two decades, an education-reform movement has swept the country, pushing for more standardized testing and accountability and for more alternatives to the traditional classroom — most of it supplied by private companies.”
A straightforward example of how this part of the profit-making scheme works arose just a few months ago in New York City. There, Rupert Murdoch dumped $1 million into a corporate “reform” movement pushing to both implement more standardized testing and divert money for education fundamentals (hiring teachers, buying textbooks, maintaining school buildings, etc.) into testing-assessment technology. At the same time, Murdoch was buying an educational technology company called Wireless Generation, which had just signed a lucrative contract with New York City’s school system (a sweetheart deal inked by New York City school official Joel Klein, who immediately went to work for Murdoch.
Such shenanigans are increasingly commonplace throughout America, resulting in a revenue jackpot for testing companies and high tech firms, even though many of their products have not objectively improved student achievement.
At the same time, major banks are reaping a windfall from “reformers’” successful efforts to take public money out of public schools and put it into privately administered charter schools. As the New York Daily News recently reported:
“Wealthy investors and major banks have been making windfall profits by using a little-known federal tax break to finance new charter-school construction. The program, the New Markets Tax Credit, is so lucrative that a lender who uses it can almost double his money in seven years…
“The credit can even be piggybacked on other tax breaks for historic preservation or job creation. By combining the various credits with the interest from the loan itself, a lender can almost double his investment over the seven-year period.
“No wonder JPMorgan Chase announced this week it was creating a new $325 million pool to invest in charter schools and take advantage of the New Markets Tax Credit.”
SOURCES
Ravitch: A primer on the group driving school reform (Washington Post)
Activist targeting schools, backed by big bucks (Reuters)
5 Ways Michelle Rhee’s Report Puts Students Last (National Opportunity to Learn Campaign)
Right-Wing Campaign to Privatize Public Ed Takes Hold in Pennsylvania (AlterNet)
Big corporate money in support of school vouchers hits primary races statewide. Will it tip the scales in Philly? (City Paper)
The bait and switch of school “reform” (Salon)
The Deep Pockets Behind Education Reform (Forbes)
Privatizing Public Education, Higher Ed Policy, and Teachers (The Center for American Democracy)
Pointing out you’re factually and legally wrong (not merely misspoken) is an intellectually honest response. Being a whiny equivocating twit about being proven wrong? Not so much.
The rest of your back-pedalling is hilarious.
I’m waiting for “playing the victim” accusation. Come on, don’t admit you went over the line, keep shooting from the hip. Only people w/ true self esteem can admit when they’re wrong.
I misspoke about Federal unions. There are a few as pointed out. However as we all know, they do not have the right to collectively bargain. They’re unions w/o an real power. An intellectually honest response would have included that critical fact. Just ask the millions of federal employees who don’t join them, and those who do.
TonyC, Grew up in a blue collar, ethnic, union family as I’ve said many times. I understand their history and importance in our countries capitalist society. I hate the teacher’s union for the many reasons stated. I DO NOT hate unions.
“I misspoke about Federal unions. There are a few as pointed out. However as we all know, they do not have the right to collectively bargain. They’re unions w/o an real power.”
Some apology Nick…..weaseling a bit? Who is really being “intellectually dishonest” here? An honest apology would have been “I was wrong”. You fell quite below the mark.
“Federal employees are not allowed to unionize.”
Really.
The AFGE, NTEU and NFFE (and others, including Federal law) would disagree.
The National Labor Relations Act makes a lot more sense when you actually read it instead of just railing against something you don’t understand. Much like the history of unions themselves.
Nick: Unions can engage in abuse and corruption just like other protective organizations can engage in abuse and corruption; think of the police, the court systems, Congress, the Military, various charities that spend large chunks of money on “leadership” or gaining political favor, think of Insurance companies that weasel out of their protective function in order to improve their profits.
The fact that an organization can have bad apples in it does not mandate the abolition of that type of organization. Unions protect teachers, unions protect workers, unions prevent far, far more abuses of power by the rich and powerful than they commit.
My city has some corrupt cops; there have been four or five drug scandals. That doesn’t make me want to abolish the police department altogether, I think crime would skyrocket. Our military has some criminally corrupt officers, I do not want to abolish the military. I once had to file a lawsuit to get my home insurance company to pay up on something clearly covered (and they caved the same day we filed and covered all costs) but that doesn’t make me want to abolish the insurance industry.
You have an irrational hatred of unions.
SWM, As I’ve said many times, I LOVE Chicago. It is my FAVORITE city. I deplore the corruption and how one party rule over generations has made it a cesspool of excessive taxes and waste.
Elaine, Over on the Zimmerman thread some shoot from the hip guy accused myself and others of being “racists” because we have the temerity to say a person has a right to a fair trial. I will say the same to you regarding your sexist taunt that I said to him regarding his racist horseshit; it says everything about you, and nothing about me. My wife, daughter, mother, sisters, friends, female employees, female clients, female teacher colleagues, neighbors, and the many females I have helped gratis, would take offense to that almost as much as I. I moved from KC, to Chicago, to Madison to advance my wife’s career. I left a job I LOVED in KC. I had to find a job when we got to Chicago and I had to start a business in Madsion You went way over the line but I know you don’t apologize for anything. You’re not strong enough for that.
“You went way over the line but I know you don’t apologize for anything. You’re not strong enough for that.”
Nick,
That is more nonsense from you. When people disagree with you, you claim victim hood. Yet you’ve shown time and again that no one else but you is a victim. Your comment regarding male teachers leaving the school system because of unions was nonsensical and the type of unproven anecdotal commentary you have become known for. It certainly connoted that the school system collapsed because of the absence of males and the males left because of unions. You say that you root for the underdog, yet the truth is by your own words, that you root for people like Gates and Jobs, who were ruthless b*sta*rds in their career and see them as wise.
“Only people w/ true self esteem can admit when they’re wrong.”
If that’s the case then you lack self esteem because you never honestly admit you’re wrong in anything. I’m sure though that among your crowd you are seen as the acme of wisdom, but like with Wiley Coyote Acme products never work.
Sneak Attack
Michigan Multi-Millionaire Betsy DeVos Is A Four-Star General In A Deceptive Behind-The-Scenes War On Public Schools And Church-State Separation
September 2010
By Rob Boston
https://www.au.org/church-state/september-2010-church-state/featured/sneak-attack
Excerpt:
In March, a Michigan multi-millionaire named Betsy DeVos announced the formation of a new national group to fight for voucher subsidies for religious schools and other forms of “school choice.”
“Political gamesmanship and special interests should never stand in the way of providing children with access to great schools,” DeVos fulminated in a press release announcing the creation of the American Federation for Children. “We know that it takes smart public policy – and political backbone – to bring about the types of school choice programs that provide families with better educational opportunities. That is why we have created the American Federation for Children.”
But on closer inspection, it turned out that this Washington, D.C.-based organization wasn’t so new after all. As the press release mentioned, the American Federation for Children was just a rebranding effort for a group previously known as Advocates for School Choice.
Why the name change? DeVos, a fundamentalist Christian and far-right political activist, probably wanted to jump-start the pro-voucher drive with at least the appearance of something new. At the same time, the revised moniker was a slap at the American Federation of Teachers, a teachers’ union much loathed by DeVos and her allies.
The real news in the release was the growing prominence of DeVos as a linchpin in the voucher movement. Although hardly a household name, if Betsy DeVos has her way, every American could feel her reach: DeVos’ goal is nothing short of a radical re-creation of education in the United States, with tax-supported religious and other private schools replacing the traditional public school system.
DeVos rarely states it that bluntly. Instead, she crouches behind the euphemism of “school choice” and pretends to be a kindly advocate for downtrodden youngsters trapped in public schools described as “failing.”
Driven by a relentless faith in ultra-conservative religion and the privatization of public services, DeVos and her husband, Dick, who is best known as the former president of Amway, are pouring millions from their personal fortune into a nationwide voucher push.
They’ll be bringing plenty of anti-public school allies along for the ride – chief among them the Walton Family Foundation, an entity operated by the heirs of Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart.
Publicly available documents tell an interesting story of interlocking organizations linked by an ambitious political agenda aimed right at the heart of public education. It’s an alarming tale in which Betsy DeVos poses as a benign benefactor of poor children – all while spearheading a billion-dollar store chain’s crusade to crush unions and privatize a public school system that serves 90 percent of American youngsters.
A key component of the plot is DeVos’ American Federation for Children, a group that shares a street address with another of her organizations, the Alliance for School Choice (ASC). The ASC has since 2007 spent nearly $13.5 million on its pro-voucher crusade – and much of that money came from DeVos.
The documents show that in 2008, the most recent year for which figures are available, the Alliance for School Choice poured millions into state-based voucher organizations and front groups claiming to represent black and Hispanic parents. The goal is familiar: pressure legislators by convincing them support for vouchers is growing.
Swarthmore,
I don’t think nick is too fond of or has a lot of respect for women–at least the ones who are teachers. He does, however, have great admiration and respect for billionaires who use their money to help pervert/privatize the public education in this country.
Nick does not like unions, Chicago or democrats……. I guess nick has me covered. My mother lived in Chicago, was a member of the the state employees union and was a democrat.
nick,
I see you have a high regard for women. Those poor men who left teaching because of the “stifling” union movement. I guess you didn’t see the PBS Teaching Timeline that I posted earlier. IHere’s an excerpt from it for you:
“By the turn of the 20th century, nearly 75 percent of America’s teachers were women. But women made up a far smaller percentage of administrators, and their power decreased with each higher level of authority. Their deportment had always been closely watched; increasingly their work in the schoolroom was not only scrutinized, but rigidly controlled. Teacher autonomy was on the decline, and teachers resented it.”
*****
It seems every one you know hates unions. Your anti-union rants have become repetitive. Just thought I’d mention that as you often accuse me of repeating myself.
Federal employees are not allowed to unionize. FDR knew there was an inherent conflict in unionized govt. employees and all Dem presidents have followed that wisdom. They have a good mix of gender, class, race, etc. The teaching ranks are white, female, middle class. They serve white, female, middle class students adequately. The rest..let them eat cake. Go figure! There is a basic Darwinian law that applies to virtually everything..adapt or perish. The teachers unions have refused to adapt and they are dying. Unfortunately, a generation of kids, except for middle class, white, female, compliant ones have suffered. Now, we’ve had this discussion previously, I know you are very busy and don’t remember everything. I agree that many of the social ills that kids bring to the classroom makes teaching MUCH more difficult. I have an aunt who taught grammar school for 40 years. She talks about how during her tenure[1962-2002] kids came to school w/ an increasing amount of family and learning problems. However, she also hated her union and the constraints put on her to “Go along to get along.” I know you are the majority in the union groupthink. That’s what unions are best at. But, you also know there are a distinct minority like my aunt who did not abide the union. They’ve mostly retired and new teachers have been indoctrinated into the union mindset. That’s why Teach For America is such a threat.
You might be right…. But… They didn’t care if non jocks did well….
AY,
Maybe those teacher coaches were the only guys tough enough to bear the stifling of those evil unions.
We all know that MALE Teachers/Coaches have been the backbone of the public school system until the evil school unions replaced them with lesbian seductresses…………..er at least some of us know that.
Hey Elaine….
I was scared of mean ole male teachers until 11th Grade….. I preferred female teachers…. The harder the better…. Usually, the male teacher in Texas were coaches that abhorred anyone that did not play football…. Well I didn’t….
Effects of Inequality and Poverty vs. Teachers and Schooling on America’s Youth
by David C. Berliner
http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=16889
Excerpt;
Background/Context:
This paper arises out of frustration with the results of school reforms carried out over the past few decades. These efforts have failed. They need to be abandoned. In their place must come recognition that income inequality causes many social problems, including problems associated with education. Sadly, compared to all other wealthy nations, the USA has the largest income gap between its wealthy and its poor citizens. Correlates associated with the size of the income gap in various nations are well described in Wilkinson & Pickett (2010), whose work is cited throughout this article. They make it clear that the bigger the income gap in a nation or a state, the greater the social problems a nation or a state will encounter. Thus it is argued that the design of better economic and social policies can do more to improve our schools than continued work on educational policy independent of such concerns.
Conclusions/Recommendations:
It is concluded that the best way to improve America’s schools is through jobs that provide families living wages. Other programs are noted that offer some help for students from poor families. But in the end, it is inequality in income and the poverty that accompanies such inequality, that matters most for education.
Challenging Corporate Ed Reform
And 10 hopeful signs of resistance
By Stan Karp
Spring 2012
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/26_03/26_03_karp.shtml
Excerpt:
The ‘Reform’ Track Record
Let’s look for a minute at what corporate reformers have actually achieved when it comes to addressing the real problems of public education.
First, they chose the wrong targets. They didn’t go after funding inequity, poverty, reform faddism, consultant profiteering, massive teacher turnover, politicized bureaucratic management, or the overuse and misuse of testing. Instead, they went after collective bargaining, teacher tenure, and seniority. And they went after the universal public and democratic character of public education.
Look again at the proposals the corporate reformers have made prominent features of school reform efforts in every state: rapid expansion of charters, closing “low-performing” schools, more testing, elimination of tenure and seniority for teachers, and test-based teacher evaluation. If every one of these policies were fully implemented in every state tomorrow, it would do absolutely nothing to close academic achievement gaps, increase high school graduation rates, or expand access to college. There is no evidence tying any of these proposals to better outcomes for large numbers of kids over time. The greatest gains in reducing gaps in achievement and opportunity have been made during periods when concentrated poverty has been dispersed through efforts at integration, when lower-income communities have experienced economic growth, or when significant new investments in school funding have occurred, often in response to grassroots campaigns for civil rights and social justice.
Teachers overwhelmingly agree that poverty is no excuse for lousy schooling; much of our work is about proving that the potential of our students and communities can be fulfilled when their needs are met and the reality of their lives is reflected in our schools and classrooms. But in the current reform debates, saying poverty isn’t an excuse has become an excuse for ignoring poverty.
The corporate reform plans now being put forward do nothing to reduce the concentrations of 70, 80, and even 90 percent of families living in poverty that remain the central problem in urban education. Instead, educational inequality has become the entry point for disruptive reform that increases instability throughout the system and creates new forms of collateral damage in our most vulnerable communities.
The upheaval that corporate reformers claim is necessary to shake up the status quo is increasing pressure on 5,000 schools serving the poorest communities at a time of unprecedented economic crisis and budget cutting. The waiver bailout for NCLB announced last fall by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will actually ratchet up that pressure. Although the waivers roll back NCLB’s absurd adequate yearly progress system just as it was about to self-destruct, the new guidelines require states that receive waivers to identify up to 5 percent of their schools with the lowest scores for destabilizing “turnaround” interventions, charterization, or closing.
Teacher Evaluation as a Weapon
Teachers and schools, who in many cases are day to day the strongest advocates and most stable support system struggling youth have, are instead being scapegoated for social policies that are failing both our schools and our children. At the same time, corporate reformers are giving parents “triggers” to blow up the schools they have, but little say and no guarantees about what will replace them.
The only thing corporate reform policies have done successfully is bring the anti-labor politics of class warfare to public schools. By demonizing teachers and unions, and sharply polarizing the education debate, corporate reform has actually undermined serious efforts to improve schools. It’s narrowed the common ground and eroded the broad public support a universal system of public education needs to survive.
For example, take the issue of teacher evaluation, which the corporate reformers have made a top priority in almost every state. On the surface, there is actually a lot of common ground on the need to improve teacher support and evaluation. There’s widespread agreement among educators, parents, and administrators on the need for:
– better preparation and evaluation before new teachers get tenure (or leave the profession, as 50 percent do within five years).
– reasonable, timely procedures for resolving tenure hearings when they are initiated.
– a credible intervention process to remediate and, if necessary, remove ineffective teachers, tenured or nontenured.
Good models for each of these ideas exist, many with strong teachers’ union support. (See, for example, this description of the Montgomery County, Md., professional growth system: rethinkingschoolsblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/taking-teacher-quality-seriously-a-collaborative-approach-to-teacher-evaluation.)
But corporate reformers have detached the issue of improving teacher quality from the conditions that produce it. Instead, they are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into data systems and tests designed to replace collaborative professional culture and experienced instructional leadership with a kind of psychometric astrology. These data-driven formulas lack both statistical credibility and a basic understanding of the human motivations and relationships that make good schooling possible. Instead of “elevating the profession,” corporate reform is deforming it.
Right now, my home state of New Jersey is getting ready to implement a so-called “growth model” developed in Colorado, where they are giving 1st graders multiple choice questions about Picasso paintings and using the results to decide the compensation level and job security of teachers. This is not accountability. It’s a high-tech form of Taylorism, an updated version of industrial-era management by stopwatch-wielding efficiency experts, now with computerized clipboards. It’s what happens when people who have never taught in classrooms control them.
One of the favorite—and most dishonest—framings of the corporate crowd is counterposing the interests of “adults” vs. “the children.” This rhetoric self-righteously pits the interests of teachers and their unions against those of children. There are certainly times when those interests diverge, and when teachers’ unions have not defended the interests of the families and communities we serve. But the corporate reformers never question the motives of adults like the hedge fund privateers, consultants, private foundation officers, pundits, and politicians who are suddenly the champions of the poor. Only in a corporate media culture could a campaign of billionaires to privatize and dismantle what’s probably the most inclusive democratic institution we have left be dressed up as a selfless campaign for civil rights. New York City union activist Leo Casey noted that, of the top 10 names on Forbes’ list of the richest Americans, only one “is not engaged in active political warfare against public school teachers and teacher unions.” The rest are investing their fabulous wealth in campaigns for vouchers, charter school franchises, astroturf political groups like Michelle Rhee’s self-promoting Students First, and efforts to reduce salaries, benefits, and job security for teachers.
Gene,
It sure sucks that the one bulwark still standing against corporate and management abuses is standing in the way of men teaching.
Cryin’ freakn’ shame. *sniff**snort**HONK*
*****
Those evil unions keeping men from teaching and causing the ranks of the profession to be overrun with lowly, self-serving, incompetent women . Oh, the humanity!
Turning the Tide: An Historian’s View of School Reform
Speech to a Principals’ Workshop at Columbia Teachers College
By Mark Naison
http://www.laprogressive.com/school-reform/
Excerpt:
It is hard to put in words how honored I am to have been invited to speak to this group. I can think of no gathering whose work is more important to the future of this nation, or have handled this responsibility more honorably, than public schools principals in the state of New York. You are the last line of defense between public school teachers and a political juggernaut of unprecedented proportions seeking to change the way public education in the United States is organized.
This movement, led almost exclusively by people who come from business and the law rather than education, is responsible for the public demonization of members of a human services profession unprecedented in American history, yet it commands virtually unanimous support of the press and broadcast media, leaders of both political parties, the nation’s wealthiest foundations and some misguided civil rights leaders.
What other cause can you think of that can unite Barack Obama, Newt Gingrich, Al Sharpton, Bill Gates, The Koch Brothers, The Walton Family, Scott Bradley, Andrew Cuomo, Michael Bloomberg and Chris Christie? The unlikeliness of this coalition would be amusing were its consequences not so tragic — the closing of schools which have served hard-pressed communities for generations, the development of testing protocols that crowd out science, history and the arts, the development of school and teacher evaluations whose results defy common sense, the erosion of the democratic rights of school professionals and a daily numbing attack on the teachers that destroys the morale of the best people in the profession.
But I don’t have to explain these events to people in this room because you live with their consequences every day. You watch your schools be deluged with unnecessary tests. You watch “value added” systems for rating schools and teachers be developed which use minute variations in test scores as the basis for life-changing decisions about schools and the people who work in them. You watch your teachers collapse in tears as their profession is attacked almost daily in the pages of the New York Times, the the New York Daily News and The New York Post, and as people from the President to New York’s Governor and New York City’s Mayor blame them for everything from poverty, to racial inequality to the inability of American workers to compete in a global economy.
And in the face of all of this, you hold your school communities together. You stand up for your teachers and let them know you have their back, you educate your parents about the craziness of current school evaluation protocols and warn them not to believe what they read in the papers, and you make sure your students in spite of all the testing still have room for imagination and play and community building.
I know this because I have seen it first hand in working with several extraordinary principals at high poverty schools in the Bronx, as well as from someone many of you in this room know — one of the greatest leaders I have ever met in any capacity, in any profession — my wife, Liz Phillips, principal of PS 321
But you have done more than just protect your school community. Many of you have spoken up publicly against the policies coming from Washington, and Albany and The New York City Department of Education which undermine the best practices you have spent your life learning and implementing. The Long Island School Principals’ letter, which some people in this room helped to launch, and some of you have signed, is one of the most important grass roots initiative in the nation challenging the stifling, and ultimately reactionary testing and teacher evaluation features of Race to the Top. You have set a standard of professional integrity for the entire nation, and I feel profoundly honored to be in your presence.
Only a Teacher
Teaching Timeline
http://www.pbs.org/onlyateacher/timeline.html
Excerpt:
1890s to 1910s: Women Teacher’s Rebellion
“It was with that first class that I became aware that a teacher was subservient to a higher authority. I became increasingly aware of this subservience to an ever growing number of authorities with each succeeding year, until there is danger today of becoming aware of little else.” — Marian Dogherty, Teacher, Boston, 1899
By the turn of the 20th century, nearly 75 percent of America’s teachers were women. But women made up a far smaller percentage of administrators, and their power decreased with each higher level of authority. Their deportment had always been closely watched; increasingly their work in the schoolroom was not only scrutinized, but rigidly controlled. Teacher autonomy was on the decline, and teachers resented it.
Especially in big city schools, teachers at the turn of the 20th century felt like the most insignificant cogs in a huge machine. They felt dictated to and spied upon. Furthermore, they were badly paid and lacked pension benefits or job security. Many teaching positions were dispensed through political patronage. Married women were often barred from the classroom, and women with children were denied a place in schools. And daily conditions could be deplorable. The often-cited developments of immigration, urbanization and westward expansion had swelled, and changed the face of, the student population. Teachers had little flexibility in how they were to teach their myriad charges, who in urban schools particularly, might well come from impoverished families who spoke little English. They taught in classrooms that were overcrowded, dark and poorly ventilated. Schools felt like factories.
For rural teachers, conditions were not necessarily much better. They had limited resources, with the added burden of keeping up run-down schools. African-American teachers especially suffered from inadequate materials and funding. Though their communities were eager for schooling, teachers found that money was rarely abundant. Well into the 20th century, black school systems relied on hand-me-down textbooks and used equipment, discarded by their white counterparts. African-American teachers were usually paid significantly less than their white peers and their civil rights were often compromised. (For instance, in a later era, belonging to the NAACP could be grounds for dismissal and southern affiliates of the National Education Association denied black teachers membership.)
In the early decades of the 20th century, even as school districts put greater emphasis on “professionalization,” teachers everywhere felt left behind. City Boards of Education, increasingly made up of business and professional men, worked to reform teaching. Often their goals were laudable: to root out corruption, to raise the practice and status of teaching, to ensure real student achievement. But they rarely had any first-hand knowledge of what teaching actually was like. They worked according to a business model, with clear hierarchies and chains of command — which left teachers at the bottom. The “administrative progressives” (as education historian David Tyack has called them) wanted to impose uniformity and efficiency on classrooms of 50 disparate children. They supported the move away from Normal Schools to university departments of education, where theory would rule. They discouraged individual initiative by teachers, whom they considered too limited to enact worthwhile change.
Not surprisingly, teachers rebelled. At least in urban districts teachers had the advantage of numbers. Cities became the centers for the teachers associations that eventually grew into unions. In Chicago, Margaret Haley and Catherine Goggin of the Chicago Federation of Teachers rallied their peers (and the city government) for improved pay, retirement benefits and tenure. Haley knew that many women considered teaching genteel, white-collar work. Joining a union was anathema to them. But she convinced them that they needed the union and could do real social good within its embrace. In the process, she laid the foundation for the American Federation of Teachers (one of the two main teachers unions today, along with the National Education Association). In New York, Grace Strachan and the Interborough Association of Women Teachers fought for Equal Pay for Equal Work (despite men’s assertion that they rightfully should be paid more than their female counterparts, since they had families to support).
nick,
So… I take it you’re implying that the teaching ranks were made up of many more males,,,until the advent of teacher unions. Is that right? That males can’t bear to be stifled by unions,,,but women can? That the teaching profession is not what it could/should be because of the predominance of women in its ranks?
We’ve heard your anti-teacher and anti-union arguments time and again. You’ve had limited experience in the teaching profession. Still, you judge all educators as bad.,,incompetent…uncaring,,,self-serving.
Arne Duncan is no educator. What did he do as CEO of the Chicago Public Schools that so impresses you?
*****
Obama’s Betrayal of Public Education? Arne Duncan and the Corporate Model of Schooling
By Henry A. Giroux & Kenneth Saltman
Wednesday 17 December 2008
http://archive.truthout.org/121708R
Excerpt:
Barack Obama’s selection of Arne Duncan for secretary of education does not bode well either for the political direction of his administration nor for the future of public education. Obama’s call for change falls flat with this appointment, not only because Duncan largely defines schools within a market-based and penal model of pedagogy, but also because he does not have the slightest understanding of schools as something other than adjuncts of the corporation at best or the prison at worse. The first casualty in this scenario is a language of social and political responsibility capable of defending those vital institutions that expand the rights, public goods and services central to a meaningful democracy. This is especially true with respect to the issue of public schooling and the ensuing debate over the purpose of education, the role of teachers as critical intellectuals, the politics of the curriculum and the centrality of pedagogy as a moral and political practice.
Duncan, CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, presided over the implementation and expansion of an agenda that militarized and corporatized the third largest school system in the nation, one that is about 90 percent poor and nonwhite. Under Duncan, Chicago took the lead in creating public schools run as military academies, vastly expanded draconian student expulsions, instituted sweeping surveillance practices, advocated a growing police presence in the schools, arbitrarily shut down entire schools and fired entire school staffs. A recent report, “Education on Lockdown,” claimed that partly under Duncan’s leadership “Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has become infamous for its harsh zero tolerance policies. Although there is no verified positive impact on safety, these policies have resulted in tens of thousands of student suspensions and an exorbitant number of expulsions.”[4] Duncan’s neoliberal ideology is on full display in the various connections he has established with the ruling political and business elite in Chicago.[5] He led the Renaissance 2010 plan, which was created for Mayor Daley by the Commercial Club of Chicago – an organization representing the largest businesses in the city. The purpose of Renaissance 2010 was to increase the number of high quality schools that would be subject to new standards of accountability – a code word for legitimating more charter schools and high stakes testing in the guise of hard-nosed empiricism. Chicago’s 2010 plan targets 15 percent of the city district’s alleged underachieving schools in order to dismantle them and open 100 new experimental schools in areas slated for gentrification. Most of the new experimental schools have eliminated the teacher union. The Commercial Club hired corporate consulting firm A.T. Kearney to write Ren2010, which called for the closing of 100 public schools and the reopening of privatized charter schools, contract schools (more charters to circumvent state limits) and “performance” schools. Kearney’s web site is unapologetic about its business-oriented notion of leadership, one that John Dewey thought should be avoided at all costs. It states, “Drawing on our program-management skills and our knowledge of best practices used across industries, we provided a private-sector perspective on how to address many of the complex issues that challenge other large urban education transformations.”[6]
Duncan’s advocacy of the Renaissance 2010 plan alone should have immediately disqualified him for the Obama appointment. At the heart of this plan is a privatization scheme for creating a “market” in public education by urging public schools to compete against each other for scarce resources and by introducing “choice” initiatives so that parents and students will think of themselves as private consumers of educational services.[7] As a result of his support of the plan, Duncan came under attack by community organizations, parents, education scholars and students. These diverse critics have denounced it as a scheme less designed to improve the quality of schooling than as a plan for privatization, union busting and the dismantling of democratically-elected local school councils. They also describe it as part of neighborhood gentrification schemes involving the privatization of public housing projects through mixed finance developments.[8] (Tony Rezko, an Obama and Blagojevich campaign supporter, made a fortune from these developments along with many corporate investors.) Some of the dimensions of public school privatization involve Renaissance schools being run by subcontracted for-profit companies – a shift in school governance from teachers and elected community councils to appointed administrators coming disproportionately from the ranks of business. It also establishes corporate control over the selection and model of new schools, giving the business elite and their foundations increasing influence over educational policy. No wonder that Duncan had the support of David Brooks, the conservative op-ed writer for The New York Times.
One particularly egregious example of Duncan’s vision of education can be seen in the conference he organized with the Renaissance Schools Fund. In May 2008, the Renaissance Schools Fund, the financial wing of the Renaissance 2010 plan operating under the auspices of the Commercial Club, held a symposium, “Free to Choose, Free to Succeed: The New Market in Public Education,” at the exclusive private club atop the Aon Center. The event was held largely by and for the business sector, school privatization advocates, and others already involved in Renaissance 2010, such as corporate foundations and conservative think tanks. Significantly, no education scholars were invited to participate in the proceedings, although it was heavily attended by fellows from the pro-privatization Fordham Foundation and featured speakers from various school choice organizations and the leadership of corporations. Speakers clearly assumed the audience shared their views.
*****
December 29, 2008
No Cheers for New Education Secretary
Arne Duncan’s Dark Years in Chicago
by KENNETH LIBBY
http://www.counterpunch.org/2008/12/29/arne-duncan-s-dark-years-in-chicago/
Excerpt:
Duncan leaves his position in Chicago with quite a legacy. He used the punitive aspects of No Child Left Behind to close underperforming schools, mandate curricula, and fire entire school staffs based on standardized test scores. Working with the Commercial Club of Chicago, a group representing the city’s wealthy businesses, Duncan headed a program called “Renaissance 2010,” designed to close the most “underperforming” schools based strictly on test scores and open new charter schools in the same neighborhoods – neighborhoods also primed for gentrification. Some of Duncan’s plans have been foiled by community advocacy groups, the only force willing to stand up against the collusion of government officials and corporate interests.
Over the past seven years, Duncan helped the city of Chicago open over 100 new schools (at least 84 charters run by Renaissance 2010 with 31 more planned), including the city’s second Disney-run elementary school, 5 military academies with more in planning stages, for-profit schools, non-profit organizations receiving financial backing from “educational venture funds,” and charter schools funded by big business (Boeing, Citigroup, Bank of America, Washington Mutual, and the Gates Foundation among others – all given corporate tax breaks, buyouts, and tax deductions that take money from our public schools). There are, undoubtedly, a number of remarkable charter schools in Chicago offering a high-quality education, but they are a small minority. However, since the beginning of his tenure in 2001, Chicago schools have become more segregated (in fact, America’s schools are more segregated now than during 1954′s landmark Brown vs. Board legislation) in part because of expanded charter schools.